Tag Archives: Kingdom Hearts

We Zelda fans are not too different from Kingdom Hearts fans these days. We are waiting for Nintendo to open the floodgates and let us see some new Zelda Wii U suff, and they are waiting around to hear more about Kingdom Hearts 3, like they have for YEARS now. Still, though, news seems to point towards both groups getting news soon. In the mean time, ScrewAttack has thrown together something awesome/controversial to hold all of us over for a little while. Who will win: Link or Sora?

Kingdom Hearts/Zelda crossover fanart is not at all uncommon. There are loads of drawings and paintings of custom keyblades and Kingdom Hearts-style outfits for Zelda’s characters, but crafts and large-scale builds are often some of the coolest projects. This keyblade in particular, made by Sephiroths-Shadow on deviantART, is called the Guardian of Hyrule Keyblade, and it has a beautiful design. Sephiroths-Shadow has even posted a few pictures mid-way through the whole project to show off the build process.

Check out the making-of pictures, and the final outcome, after the jump! Read more…

In my old article, Overworlds: The Land Between, I took the time to define the personal names I have for four styles of overworld commonly seen in Zelda. The wilderness is a wild and dangerous area where you are left on your own, while the map is either a miniaturized representation of the world or little more than a menu. But it’s the hub and transportation overworlds that I will be focusing on in this article, for I believe that the execution of these overworld concepts has generally been weak in the Zelda series.

In the aforementioned article I discussed why I felt that the wilderness overworlds were the most natural fit for the Zelda series, but whether that’s true or not, the other styles of overworld should be able to work when well-executed; this article is not about bashing Zelda and talking about why half of its overworlds suck, but an in-depth look at what I believe to be flaws and an examination on how they can be improved. To do this, I will be looking to other series that have executed these overworlds better than any Zelda game has.

So first let’s begin with the most talked about style: The transportation overworlds, where the gameplay actually changes into something else while you travel, typically due to riding a vehicle or mount. There are two games in particular that use this style of overworld that I think have outperformed Zelda’s use of it. These are Beyond Good & Evil and Kingdom Hearts II.